ISLAMABAD  -   Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Accountability Shahzad Akbar on Saturday said previous government misused the public funds and authority and the government decided to refer four new cases of Sharif family to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for investigation.

Addressing a joint press conference with Special Assistant to PM on Media Affairs Iftikhar Durrani, he said Sharif family misused public funds and authority, which caused irreparable loss to the national exchequer.

The special assistant said the PM's plane was misused during the tenure of the previous government as 340 million rupees were illegally spent on air travels. He said the daughter of former premier Maryam Nawaz used the PM's aircraft illegally. He said former Punjab chief minister Shehbaz Sharif spent 600 million rupees on air travel.

Shahzad Akbar said the government will ask the NAB to hold independent investigation and we are going to hand over the record of PM House from 2014 to 2018 to the NAB.

He said the properties owned by Sharif family in London are also under scrutiny and its details have been sought from British government and the cases of misuse of funds in erecting a security fence around their Raiwind Palace, plundering funds allocated for entertainment and gifts.

He said the previous rulers had been using the taxpayers money lavishly. The budget of Chief Minister House was enhanced manifold during the years 2013-2018 with malafide intention, he added.

He said the Assets Recovery Unit was in process of referring a case about the Sharif family's new property unearthed in London to the NAB. He said a news channel had flashed the news of the property [Frederick Close] located in Central London of around 2.3 million pounds value. The documents regarding its ownership and rental income from 2012 to 2016 had been available, "but were buried in files".

According to those documents, he said, the property was in the name of Begum Kulsoom Nawaz, late wife of former premier Nawaz Sharif.

The SAPM said as prime minister and a Member of the National Assembly (MNA) it was Nawaz Sharif's responsibility to declare the assets owned by his dependents, including his wife. He said the declaration of spouse's assets by every citizen were mandatory to be made in wealth statements while a member of the parliament was also required to do so in nomination forms submitted with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for taking part in elections. Parliamentarians were also supposed to submit their annual declarations with the ECP mentioning their own assets and those of their spouses, he added.

He said they had requested Britain for fresh ownership documents of the property. According to the land registry, the property was transferred to Hassan Nawaz in August 2016. The property had lately been sold in March 2018, he added.

He said "We have asked Britain to provide all the documents related to property. We may receive the documents in a week or two. Each and every thing will be shared with the media."

To a question, he said the government was inking agreements with various countries for data sharing.

Iftikhar Durrani said the information shared by China about the Multan Metro Bus Project would be shared with the media soon. He said corrupt practices of former rulers were surfacing one after the other though they were denying to possess any land at home or abroad. Even they had distanced themselves from the contents of Qatari letters, he added.

To a question, he said the performance of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government would be shared with the media on completion of its first 100 days in office.

He said Imran Khan had paid all the expenses for the security fence erected as per the Blue Book at his Banigala residence, while the Sharif family had spent the taxpayers’ money for the purpose.